LogicMan-4) SWAT teams make use of AR-15s because they are safer weapons with regards to the safety of the general public with regards to wall penetration issues.

Are you friggin’ serious with this? Now your trying to paint the AR-15(and any other semi-automatic weapon with a magazine capacity over 10 rounds) as safe!?!?

The AR-15, which shoots either .223 or 5.56(virtually identical cartridges, only separated from one another by name, and sometimes very slight tolerances)
is not a safe weapon. That’s the weapon that was used in Aurora, Newtown, and Iraq and Vietnam. To list a few.
The .223 cartridge, regular full metal jacket will penetrate 3/8” to almost 1/4” steel at 100 yards.
It has no problem going through walls. No problem. To avoid shooting through walls, one needs to concentrate on ammo selection.
Specialty ammo is made for that purpose. It’s called “frangible bullets”. It has nothing to do with the deadly rifle.

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LogicMan-2) The government, even if it desired, could not kill the entire population possessing arms. We have seen this with the resistance in Syria and we see it with the caution the Chinese Communist party takes with regards to its own people (one could only imagine the threat the Chinese people would face to their government if they were armed like Americans). If the people are armed, there are only so many places that the government can attack, and send troops. But again, resistance should always try to be peaceful. The people being armed serves as a counterweight to the government otherwise having a monopoly on force.

I’m getting so sick of this pervasive attitude in many Americans. This is a major problem. It is very counter-productive to good society.right-wing extremism
It’s borne of ignorance, insecurity, and years and years of Hollywood conditioning. It’s borne of NRA propaganda, and like minded organizations
which can be traced back to a) right-wing extremist views; and b) Lobbyist propaganda that aims to boost gun, ammo, and gun accessories sales.

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“Fetishistic” need not have a sexual connotation. It may refer to a worshipful attitude or excessive regard for something believed magical or holy, and that’s how it was intended.

Sure. But again, how is defending right to keep arms fetishistic? It does not mean one is worshipful of firearms or has any magical view about them (to the contrary, I’d say it’s too many of the gun control people who have a magical, borderline superstitious view about certain firearms with some of the claims I’ve seen made about them). Some other countries also criticize our protection of freedom of speech as well. For example, one could say that in Germany or the UK, the government can ban certain forms of speech that it can’t here, but yet those countries are not authoritarian. Doesn’t mean that our protection of free speech here is obsessive or fetishistic.

I don’t know why owning firearms gives pleasure, but think it fair to say that it does, to some.

It gives pleasure in the same way owning shoes and clothes for many women and tools and cars for men can (a gun is a form of a tool actually).

I like sabre fencing, but don’t think that says much about my sexuality, though I’m sure some would say it does. The point is that I don’t believe that owning all kinds of firearms merely because pleasure is found in it for whatever reason is grounds for restricting reasonable regulation of Second Amendment rights.

Neither do I. But that all lies in what one’s definition of “reasonable” is. I would say that we have plenty of reasonable regulation already. I’d say we have excessive regulation even in certain areas.

Similarly, I think a belief that firearms must not be subject to regulation because the government may some day come after us all is not grounds for doing so.

Don’t confuse arguments against current proposed legislation as being against any and all gun regulations. That is what the gun control movement wants people to think, that there are no gun regulations or laws and that the gun rights people don’t support any. That is not the case.

This is again a balancing of interests. The pleasure of some is not a basis for allowing ownership of all kinds of firearms, if allowing such ownership puts others in danger. It isn’t likely the government’s going to come after us, so thinking it just might someday is not a basis on which to object to tougher background checks.

Depends on what you mean by “coming after us.” If you mean the government coming to confiscate and/or ban guns, I’d say that risk is always right around the corner with no shortage of politicians willing to take advantage of the situation to push it through. We have seen how corrupt and unaccountable the government can be with the recent IRS and Justice Department scandals. I do not for one second trust the government with regards to the information from background checks in terms of not abusing their power with that information. I am fine with universal background checks in principle if a safe way can be found to enact them.

If by “coming after us,” one means the government becoming tyrannical, I think that is a far-out proposition right now. I would disagree however that it being a far-out proposition at the moment justifies taking away a right that is meant to keep the government in check should it ever move towards that.

LogicMan-The problem with your arguments on this is that it is all very arbitrary. It’s like saying that anyone who makes over $300K a year should be taxed at 90%. Who decides that number? How is it arrived at? Similarly, the ten round limitation for magazines and the four round limitation for semiautomatic hunting rifles (which are no different than semiautomatic military rifles BTW) and the five round limitation for shotguns. How are these numbers arrived at? It is all just arbitrarily chosen by yourself.

Here’s how the figures are arrived at:
1. 99.9 percent of all pump and semi-automatic shotguns have always had 5 round capacities. Even 100 years ago as you are fond of saying. Even the shotguns the military and police use have 5 round capacities(overwhelmingly). So that’s a no brainer.
Of course shotguns are being made now with drum magazines of 10, 12 or more rounds. These are unnecessary for civilians-for anyone really.
Hunters and sport shooters have gotten along fine with 5 round capacity shotguns for 100 years. In fact hunters or target shooters have never clamored for more shell capacity-ever!
Of course they do make alternatives for paranoid wing nuts. These need to be banned.
2. No hunter or target shooter needs a rifle that can hold more than 10 rounds. All of the civilian hunting and sporting rifles have always had magazine capacities of less than 10 rounds. Hunters and target shooters have never clamored for more.
Thousands of ordinary citizens have even defended their lives and property with these hunting and sporting rifles(or shotguns or pistols) For over 100 years as you are fond of saying.So it’s not arbitrary. We can just leave all of the traditional hunting and sporting rifles, shotguns and pistols just like they are. That’s not arbitrary.
We just have to ban all weapons that are semi-automatic and have magazine capacities of 10 or more rounds. Nobody hunted or target shooted with weapons like these until very recently-say the 1970s at the very earliest!!! Not 100 years ago.
So that’s how we get these figures!!
All of the AR-15s the AK-47s, the Mini-14s, the M-14s, the Glock Pistols, the Kel-Techs pistols and every other weapon like these need to banned.
Any weapon that has been modeled after military Infantry Weapons need to be banned. Any freaky weapons that have been designed and manufactured to suit the fetishist nature of wing-nuts and survivalists need to banned.
If it is semi-automatic and has a magazine capacity of over 10 rounds-It needs to banned! This goes for pistols, rifles and shotguns. Plus dart guns, pea-shooters, slingshots, snowballs, and catapults. If it is semi-automatic and holds over 10 rounds it gets banned!!

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Very good, very good! Now your getting it. We need to change this. We need to keep semi-automatic weapons with magazines with 10 round or more capacities, out of the hands of civilians.
You’re absolutely right. Only the military or the police should have these guns.

Why? I ask you a question and you don’t bother to respond to it but instead just repeat the same thing you’ve been saying the entire time. Again, what makes “civilian” guns any different from “military” and “police” guns?

VYAZMA - 27 May 2013 07:42 PM

Are you friggin’ serious with this? Now your trying to paint the AR-15(and any other semi-automatic weapon with a magazine capacity over 10 rounds) as safe!?!?

Yes. I already explained this.

The AR-15, which shoots either .223 or 5.56(virtually identical cartridges, only separated from one another by name, and sometimes very slight tolerances)
is not a safe weapon. That’s the weapon that was used in Aurora, Newtown, and Iraq and Vietnam. To list a few.
The .223 cartridge, regular full metal jacket will penetrate 3/8” to almost 1/4” steel at 100 yards.
It has no problem going through walls. No problem. To avoid shooting through walls, one needs to concentrate on ammo selection.
Specialty ammo is made for that purpose. It’s called “frangible bullets”. It has nothing to do with the deadly rifle.

You claim because it has been used to kill people in Aurora, Newtown, Iraq, and Vietnam, that this somehow makes it not a “safe” weapon? What is your idea of “safe” for a gun? One that can’t kill? A gun is a tool that allows one to kill. Of course it can be used for deadly purposes.

And yes it does have a problem going through walls. The .223, due to its design, construction, and the velocity it travels at, fragments once it hits the target. The average walls of a home are two layers of wallboard spaced a few inches apart. When the .223 hits the first layer, it expends its energy and begins fragmenting, and thus is either unable to penetrate the second layer or penetrates with a lot less lethality. Your average pistol bullet is larger, heavier, and slower than a .223. Pistol bullets don’t fragment, because they are too slow. So when the pistol bullet hits the wall, it just punches right on through both layers of wallboard. So yes, for home defense and law enforcement purposes, the AR-15 is a safer weapon in that sense to use than most handguns.

I am sure you have heard the saying, “There is no such thing as a magic bullet.” Well that is the truth. Frangible rounds can be a lot more lethal than non-frangible rounds, but non-frangible rounds can penetrate better than frangible rounds. The .223 is very small. What makes it lethal is that when it hits human flesh, it expands (fragments). However, this also hurts its penetration ability regarding walls (some armored vehicles also exploit this principle to protect against AR-15 rifle fire, by having two layers of armor spaced a few inches apart as well). Just the same, projectiles that can penetrate better will not necessarily wound as much (non-frangible .223s and larger .308s will not wound as much as a fragmenting .223).

VYAZMA - 27 May 2013 08:10 PM

I’m getting so sick of this pervasive attitude in many Americans. This is a major problem. It is very counter-productive to good society.right-wing extremism
It’s borne of ignorance, insecurity, and years and years of Hollywood conditioning. It’s borne of NRA propaganda, and like minded organizations
which can be traced back to a) right-wing extremist views; and b) Lobbyist propaganda that aims to boost gun, ammo, and gun accessories sales.

How is it ignorant or insecure? I remember the uproar over the Bush administration’s policies, in which the way many were talking, you’d think we were literally on the verge of a fascist dictatorship (I’d love to see how the media would have responded if the Bush administration had claimed that they had the right to kill an American citizen outside of the country via drone). So were they over-reacting? I’d say probably a little. Does this mean that the Bush administration should have just been left unchecked to do as it pleased? Heck no. The political Left is very distrustful of government just as much as the political Right is, but as said, moreso with regards to the police state whereas the Right doesn’t trust the government in terms of controlling the economy and on gun rights.

Just the same, some on the Right over-react as well, but it doesn’t mean that their core arguments are ridiculous. And BTW, Hollywood is primarily made up of hardcore leftists.

1. 99.9 percent of all pump and semi-automatic shotguns have always had 5 round capacities. Even 100 years ago as you are fond of saying. Even the shotguns the military and police use have 5 round capacities(overwhelmingly). So that’s a no brainer.

Plenty of shotguns have seven round magazines these days, and plenty of guns period hold more than five or seven rounds, so your limit is still arbitrary.

Of course shotguns are being made now with drum magazines of 10, 12 or more rounds. These are unnecessary for civilians-for anyone really.

How do you know?

Hunters and sport shooters have gotten along fine with 5 round capacity shotguns for 100 years. In fact hunters or target shooters have never clamored for more shell capacity-ever!

Gun rights aren’t about hunting though.

Of course they do make alternatives for paranoid wing nuts. These need to be banned.
2. No hunter or target shooter needs a rifle that can hold more than 10 rounds. All of the civilian hunting and sporting rifles have always had magazine capacities of less than 10 rounds. Hunters and target shooters have never clamored for more.
Thousands of ordinary citizens have even defended their lives and property with these hunting and sporting rifles(or shotguns or pistols) For over 100 years as you are fond of saying.

So have many police officers. And soldiers. Doesn’t mean they should be limited to such ammunition capacities now.

So it’s not arbitrary. We can just leave all of the traditional hunting and sporting rifles, shotguns and pistols just like they are. That’s not arbitrary.
We just have to ban all weapons that are semi-automatic and have magazine capacities of 10 or more rounds. Nobody hunted or target shooted with weapons like these until very recently-say the 1970s at the very earliest!!! Not 100 years ago.
So that’s how we get these figures!!

People have hunted with semiautomatics long before the 1970s.

All of the AR-15s the AK-47s, the Mini-14s, the M-14s, the Glock Pistols, the Kel-Techs pistols and every other weapon like these need to banned.
Any weapon that has been modeled after military Infantry Weapons need to be banned.

Almost every hunting and sporting rifle in existence is modeled after a military weapon.

Any freaky weapons that have been designed and manufactured to suit the fetishist nature of wing-nuts and survivalists need to banned.

“Freaky weapons?” What are those? Also, the cosmetic appearance of a gun is how we are supposed to go about banning them now?

If it is semi-automatic and has a magazine capacity of over 10 rounds-It needs to banned! This goes for pistols, rifles and shotguns. Plus dart guns, pea-shooters, slingshots, snowballs, and catapults. If it is semi-automatic and holds over 10 rounds it gets banned!!

I know these posts are long, but I hope some of you progressives will read this stuff. Some of you need to know this stuff, so the next time you’re confronted by another LogicMan you don’t get hornswaggled! He came in here thinking he could school every one! He’s being disingenuous and spreading false propaganda!

I see LogicMan wants to make this an endless exhibition on his knowledge of guns. Typical!
Let’s recap: The Second Amendment allows people to own most guns. He’s right with this alone.
He’s attempting to muddy the waters between sporting guns and law enforcement/military weapons. This is flat out disingenuous.
An obvious propaganda tool! His only response is that the Second Amendment allows people to own weapons that are semi-automatic and have magazine capacities of over 10 rounds. So far it does. But that will change. Why else would he be on here smearing this NRA type propaganda?
He’s tries to audaciously paint the AR-15 as a safe weapon. This was his best work yet!
The AR-15 is the exact copy of the M16(or the M4 of today..minor cosmetic changes) The only difference is the select switch that the Military has to go Fully automatic.
Civilians are not allowed to have full automatic capability. But….BUT, this is irrelevant, and this is where some of my progressive friends get bogged down with the likes of our friend LogicMan: Full Automatic vs. Semi-Automatic is a non-issue! Any civilian with an AR-15 or any gun that is semi-automatic and has a magazine capacity of over 10 rounds(whuch are readily available at stores or gun shows) can easily fire over 1 bullet per second.
This has 2 dynamics.
It is even more devastating than full auto, because of accuracy/recoil issues, and it conserves ammo. It doesn’t go through bullets too fast.
Thus enabling a soldier or a psychopath to kill more people faster and more efficiently. In fact most military train their infantry men to keep their weapons on the semi-automatic setting for accuracy and ammo conservation.
In LogicMans attempt to show how safe the AR-15 is, he used another tactic these NRA sycophants use:
He tried to paint the weapon as safe by describing ammunition characteristics. The AR-15 is not a safe weapon. It is semi-automatic, and can be fitted with magazines that go as high as 100 rounds..if not more. It can shoot bullets faster than 1 round per second-as fast as someone can pull the trigger.
Which is fast! That’s the rifle that was used in Aurora, Newtown, and probably many more massacres. It’s the US Military’s main infantry weapon.
It shoots .223 Caliber or 5.56mm ammunition. They’re the same thing, the military just likes to use Metric designations.
When the US switched to .223 in the Mid 1960s the United Nations protested. It is a Hypersonic round. It travels at well over 3000 ft per second.
The UN protested because it is a horribly wounding and devastating round. It wasn’t uncommon in Vietnam for people getting shot in the leg and having the bullet exit through the shoulder. It’s also very accurate at long ranges, and easily penetrates walls, car doors, bullet proof vests, steel plating, roofs etc..
This is the main type of .223 round…The Full Metal Jacket Round. It is by far the most common, and thousands and thousands of civilians are hoarding them
from military surplus. That’s right! ex-army ammo that goes stale(not really stale- the army just buys more and has to sell off the old.) gets sold to the public. Millions and Millions of rounds.
This is the weapon LogicMan tried to paint as safe! But there are many weapons just like it that are readily available, legally to the public.

LogicMan, you are fraud! You thought you could come on here and trounce a bunch of Progressive Liberals with all of your double talk and mis-information.
Why don’t you get lost? Why would you want to spread this mis-information? Getting scared? You should be. The public aint gonna stand for too much more
of this crap.

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Again folks, if you don’t know what you’re talking about people like LogicMan can walk all over you. That’s what’s happening in Congress and on the streets.
I know this topic doesn’t interest you, but think about this: What if Greenpeace didn’t know what pollution was?
What if Sierra Club didn’t know about wildlife habitats? How do you think their missions would be going?

I have already given multiple examples of how the same guns soldiers use are the exact same ones civilians have been using for decades, and in some cases, over one-hundred years now, so no, it is not ludicrous by any means. A soldier will not use a bolt-action shotgun unless there is a need for such a weapon in the modern military. Pump-action shotguns are what soldiers have been using since WWI and they were invented in 1898. But in terms of your bolt-action shotgun’s ability to kill when fired at a human, there is no reason a soldier couldn’t make use of it if they had to.

And again, the practice of adopting military guns for civilian purposes goes back to the days of the Revolution. All modern big-game hunting rifles are the equivalent of “high-powered sniper rifles.” They can be used for the same purpose.

Still having computer problems but will attempt to respond here. And here we go again. Yes it is. No soldier in the US military has ever been issued a 410 shotgun for agressive purposes. They were issued 12 gauge pump action shotguns in World War I and II and as you may know fired slugs. They saw use in The Marine Corps in the Pacific for close action to ferret out Japanese soldiers in caves. I’m not sure that they continued the practice in Vietnam so your analogy is totally false. And as to using a tool or civilian weapon to kill and enemy let me offer this vignette explained to me by a Korean War vet friend of mine. His HQ was was overrun by Chinese soldiers and in the attack a cook grabbed a ladle and killed one of the enemy combatants. So, yes soldiers CAN use anything as a weapon if necessary. Ironically the ladle was GI issue so the Army COULD issue them as a weapon. Same with spades in World War I. German soldiers sharpened them for use in the trenches. My point is that soldiers may make use of ANYTHING as a waepon, even rocks can serve a deadly purpose as they did in the 2nd Battle of Manassas. So what? And as to modern biggame hunting rifles, snipers have specialty weapons designed for military use so why would they opt for a civilian weapon? Your analogy is weak and has no provenance concerning the issue of gun control. It’s a strawman argument at best. Oh, and check your history in reference to the Rev. War. Civilian weapons were used at the beginning of the War but military weapons, when captured in the field or from existing Btirish military arsenals were quickly issued to Washington’s troops and other colonial forces as soon as they became available. Also, after the alliance with France in 1778 thousands of stands of French military weapons were sent to colonial troops and civilian weapons, except for sharpshooter rifles were issued, leaving the civilian rifles the ONLY ones on the battlefield. Once again, military weapons trumped civilian and from reading your posts you know what I mean. There is a difference and blurring the lines between them is reaching at best and obfuscation to say the least.

Which one? One variant of the Browning BAR is considered one of the finest rifles for hunting ever made. However, I am guessing you are referring to the M1918 gun known as the “Browning BAR” as well, a machine gun. It was chambered in 30.06, so the only thing about it that makes it any different from a “civilian” gun is that it was a machine gun. As pointed out already, actual machine guns have been very regulated since the 1930s and their manufacture for the civilian market was outlawed in 1986.

It is folks such as yourself I’d say who are reaching when trying to act as if there is a difference between the handguns, semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, and bolt-action rifles the military, law enforcement, and civilians use

I am specifically referring to the Browning Automatic Rifle Caliber .30, M1918A2 The total weight of the weapon with bipod is 20 pounds. That plus the fully loaded magazine weighing over a pound makes it an unwieldly weapon for biggame hunting. I cannot conceive of this military machinegun, even though it may be fired as a single shot weapon, being utilized as a hunting weapon. removing the bipod would still make it unwieldly in the bush. And their manufacture (mostly for police departments, that’s what killed Bonnie and Clyde BTW) to the civilian market hasn’t stopped collectors from purchasing them. Once again, my collector friend has two, the first issue for WWI and a WW II issue. Ok, as to your last statement, all firearms are potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. You can argue and nitpick all you want about military vs. civilian weapons and you and I will continually disagree on this point. We’re both gun owners and enthusiasts although I’m strictly black powder and my weapons are just as deadly as yours, emphasis on the deadly which is my bottom line here. Let’s not blur the issue with the minutae of weapons knowledge. there are people in our society who are out to commit unspeakable acts of terror and mass violence and any weapon that allows them to take the lives of hundreds should be strictly regulated. Background checks may prevent some nut from getting hold of a weapon capable of killing people on a massive scale. It’s worth the two week wait for me to purchase a legal weapon. And as I mentioned before, most criminals commit crimes with handguns they were given by relatives and friends or stolen from them so this loophole also needs to be closed. This top down NRA generated paranoia must be stopped by the membership. It has to be done from the inside. That’s it for me here. We’ve gotten into a loop with this disconfirmation bias and to no avail. It’s up to the legislators to decide and I’m pressuring our Senators to pass the bill.

Depends on what you mean by “coming after us.” If you mean the government coming to confiscate and/or ban guns, I’d say that risk is always right around the corner with no shortage of politicians willing to take advantage of the situation to push it through. We have seen how corrupt and unaccountable the government can be with the recent IRS and Justice Department scandals. I do not for one second trust the government with regards to the information from background checks in terms of not abusing their power with that information. I am fine with universal background checks in principle if a safe way can be found to enact them.

If by “coming after us,” one means the government becoming tyrannical, I think that is a far-out proposition right now. I would disagree however that it being a far-out proposition at the moment justifies taking away a right that is meant to keep the government in check should it ever move towards that.

Who has proposed “taking away” the right? I suppose that there are those who would support repealing the Second Amendment, but what good reason is there to believe this would take place, let alone the government is going to confiscate firearms? Government in the U.S. (and elsewhere) has always been corrupt, but when has it threatened to confiscate guns?

There should be some reasonable basis for doubt or fear before it is accepted as grounds on which to make policy, or law. No doubt there have been unreasonable doubts and fears on both sides of the issue. But the claim that there is the possibility that government might confiscate guns is one of the more unreasonable claims being made in opposition to regulations.

In case folks have forgotten, the recent failed bill to require background checks, failed despite overwhelming public support, BUT ALSO FAILED IN THE SENATE WITH A MAJORITY OF SENATORS VOTING FOR IT. 56 YEA - 46 NAY

Again, there is no proof that that particular bill had “overwhelming” public support.

I take it that you do not consider polls as evidence. Nor the fact that 10 more senators voted for the bill than voted against it.

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As a fabrication of our own consciousness, our assignations of meaning are no less “real”, but since humans and the fabrications of our consciousness are routinely fraught with error, it makes sense, to me, to, sometimes, question such fabrications.

With the constant use of the bastardized filibuster rules, the Republicans can and have been very consistently preventing any potentially productive legislation from being passed.

...Democrats like the filibuster when its the Republicans with control and trying to push through legislation that the Democrats do not approve of…

This is a false equivalency. e.g., If one of my neighbor’s used to take a dump on my front lawn, occasionally, (let’s say he did so a relatively small number of times between 2001 and 2009) while another neighbor has taken a dump on my front lawn 100’s of times, since then, and continues to do so regularly, to the point that I have to shut down access to my home, which neighbor do you think I should go after, right now?

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As a fabrication of our own consciousness, our assignations of meaning are no less “real”, but since humans and the fabrications of our consciousness are routinely fraught with error, it makes sense, to me, to, sometimes, question such fabrications.

It is still never explained how exactly the gun rights people are an “extremist minority” or how if such a minority, they are able to control the legislative process so much. And people approve of the NRA more today than in the past.

IMO, it is an extremist position to fight tooth and nail to block legislation that could make it more difficult for criminals and crazies to acquire guns, while only imposing a reasonable waiting period for law abiding sane people.

The NRA, by its action in April to defeat this legislation, has opened itself up to a level of opposition that it has not previously had. I think that it’s time as a venerable institution that is revered by some, and ignored by most, is now in jeapordy.

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As a fabrication of our own consciousness, our assignations of meaning are no less “real”, but since humans and the fabrications of our consciousness are routinely fraught with error, it makes sense, to me, to, sometimes, question such fabrications.

As a fabrication of our own consciousness, our assignations of meaning are no less “real”, but since humans and the fabrications of our consciousness are routinely fraught with error, it makes sense, to me, to, sometimes, question such fabrications.